New Launch Date for Deep Impact
Deep Impact Project
April 1, 2003

A new launch window is announced for the Deep Impact project, the first 
mission to look deep inside a comet. Technical and management issues, 
including contamination in the propulsion system and late deliveries of 
key spacecraft components, resulted in delays in the pre-flight testing 
schedule. These concerns led Deep Impact Principal Investigator, Mike 
A'Hearn, to recommend to NASA a delay of launch. A launch window 
beginning December 30, 2004, previously identified as a back-up date, 
provides more thorough testing for the spacecraft systems before launch 
and allows the spacecraft to arrive at Comet Tempel 1 to impact it as 
originally scheduled on July, 4, 2005. NASA management approved the 
recommendation.

Old Trajectory Diagram:
http://deepimpact.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/jpg/traj_old_color.jpg

New Trajectory Diagram:
http://deepimpact.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/jpg/traj_new_color.jpg

Deep Impact will be the first mission to make a spectacular, 
football-stadium-sized crater, seven to 15 stories deep, into the 
speeding comet. Dramatic images from both the flyby spacecraft and 
the impactor will be sent back to distant Earth as data in near-realtime. 
These first-ever views deep beneath a comet's surface, and additional 
scientific measurements will provide clues to the formation of the 
solar system. Amateur astronomers will combine efforts with astronomers 
at larger telescopes to offer the public an earth-based look at this 
incredible July 2005 encounter with a comet.